While welcoming the new year, Senator Bong Go continues to provide much needed assistance to Filipinos in crisis amid holiday festivities as his office mounted a relief activity for fire victims from various barangays in Iloilo City.
“Alam ko pong napakahirap ng panahon ngayon, lalo pa ngayon na nasunugan kayo habang nasa gitna pa tayo ng pandemya. Pero magtulungan lang po tayo at magmalasakit sa bawat isa, malalagpasan din po natin ang krisis bilang nagkakaisang Pilipino,” Go said in his video message.
The legislator’s staff mounted the distribution at the CSWD Office, where they provided grocery packs, snacks, vitamins and masks to 96 families.
Meanwhile, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) provided financial assistance to each affected household.
As the lawmaker is consistently pushing for initiatives to improve the country’s healthcare system, the senator also encouraged those with health concerns to visit any of the two Malasakit Centers in Iloilo City located at Western Visayas Medical Center and West Visayas State University Medical Center, where they may conveniently access medical assistance programs by the government.
He initiated the Malasakit Centers program in 2018 after he had personally witnessed the struggles of financially incapacitated Filipinos to get the medical services they need.
The program was then institutionalized under the Malasakit Centers Act of 2019 which mandates all Department of Health-run hospitals, plus the Philippine General Hospital in Manila City, to establish their own centers to help particularly poor and indigent patients with their hospital expenses.
Go is the principal author and sponsor of said Act. To date, there are 153 Malasakit Centers that have assisted millions of Filipinos nationwide.
Meanwhile, he cited that the Bureau of Fire Protection continues to undergo a modernization program after the BFP Modernization Act of 2021.
“A lost life is a lost life forever.”
Under the law, which Go likewise primarily authored and co-sponsored, the BFP is acquiring new fire equipment, employing more firefighters, and organizing specialized training, among others, to significantly improve its firefighting capability.
“Mga kababayan ko, magtulungan lang po tayo. Ang gamit po’y nabibili natin, ang pera po’y kikitain natin subalit ang pera pong kikitain hindi nabibili ang buhay. A lost life is a lost life forever,” he said.
Go also committed to support the construction of Super Health Centers in Iloilo City and the towns of Anilao, Carles, Igbaras, Maasin, Pavia, San Joaquin and Sara.
The Super Health Center is an improved version of the rural health unit. It offers health services including database management, out-patient, birthing, isolation, diagnostic (laboratory: x-ray and ultrasound), pharmacy and ambulatory surgical unit.
Other available services are eye, ear, nose and throat (EENT) service; oncology centers; physical therapy and rehabilitation center; and telemedicine, where remote diagnosis and treatment of patients will be done.
“Alam ko po kung gaano ninyo kailangan na mapalapit sa inyo ang serbisyong medikal ng gobyerno.”
“Isinulong ko po talaga ang pagpapatayo ng mga Super Health Centers sa buong Pilipinas dahil alam ko po kung gaano ninyo kailangan na mapalapit sa inyo ang serbisyong medikal ng gobyerno,” he stressed.
“Yung mga nasa probinsya po, lalo na yung mga nasa liblib na lugar, yun po ang target na tayuan ng mga Super Health Centers. Para po masiguro na hindi na po nila kailangan lumayo at gumastos ng malaki para lang makapagpa-ospital,” Go added.
As Vice Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, he has also supported various infrastructure initiatives to help improve the delivery of basic services in the province, such as the completion of various barangay health stations throughout Iloilo City and construction of a multipurpose building in the Iloilo City Public Market.
Other major initiatives Go supported include the concreting or construction of roads in Badiangan, Banate, Carles, Dumangas, Lemery, Miag-ao and Sara; construction of multipurpose buildings in Barotac Viejo; completion of the barangay health stations in Leon; construction of a flood control system in Balasan; construction of a seawall in Banate; construction of the legislative building complete with facilities in San Dionisio; and improvement of the public parks in Dueñas.
He had also sponsored a law that increased the bed capacity and converted the WVS into the Western Visayas Sanitarium and General Hospital and another to upgrade the DJSMMCEH into a tertiary hospital to be known as the Don Jose S. Monfort Medical Center.
